Life and death in the borderlands – the story of Edward Presgrave

Abstract

This is the story of Edward Presgrave, a young Australian who went to South Africa to fight in the Boer War and then drifted up to the Northern Cape where he eventually joined Jakob Marengo in his war against the Germans. In 1905 Presgrave was actively supporting Marengo’s forces supplying them with horses, cattle and arms as well as fighting alongside Marengo in a number of engagements with German forces. Presgrave’s story is one of adventure, sacrifice, deception and betrayal and in many ways his short life and untimely death serve to illuminate many of the broader issues that marked life in colonial Namibia and in the Northern Cape borderlands.